I will start this post saying that while this thought has sparked from discussion about RG and his views, I'm not talking about him. Throw that man in the trash, we really cannot do anything to really change him.
However, the discussion surrounding the situation has gotten me to think. Because it seems that people are down right giddy and feeling vindicated with their hate.
And I sit here wondering, how do you think we can have better world if we are not ready to sit down and have hard conversations with people? Why we think everyone comes from malice instead of ignorance? Because we can actually work with ignorance. Especially us who have the priviledge to be accepted by these people. How do we expect the wolrd to change if we don't allow people to change?
It is also dangerous to think that people are just good or bad. Because what if and when you fuck up badly? What options do you have if only two ways to exist are being good or bad? If you think good people cannot fuck up that ignorance is not something we can work with, you will double down and gaslight yourself that you didn't do anything wrong. You don't have room to actually take accountability and grow as a human.
I promise you that every single one of the people around you hold some fucked up beliefs. Most of them are ignorant. It is also fucking miserable to exist in that knowledge that you hurted people and fucked up badly. I have been that person and only thing I could do was apologize, accept the fact that I hurted someone and do better. I didn't do it on purpose nor out of malice, but that didn't change the fact that I hurted someone. It felt fucking miserable and I'm glad that I had friends who helped me to sit in that discomfort and accept it instead of deflecting.
I wasn't forgiven and that is a fact I have to live with rest of my life. However, I still have rest of my life to live. And to be able to continue, I had two options: 1) deny any wrong doing, shift the blame and protect my own feelings so I could still be the "good person" 2) learn to excist with that disconfort and knowledge that I fucked up and put in the work to learn to be better. Understand that being a good person didn't mean never fucking up. I don't think picking the first one would make world any better.
I have also sat down with many people and talked about their transfobia, antisemitism, racism and other very harmful ideologies. I have the priviledge to do so. Most of them just have very wrong idea of many things. And educating them has made a big difference and changed their behaviour. Not all and some people cannot be reasoned with. Sometimes only thing to do is cutting them out.
So after you have raged enough in the internet, sit down with your friends and family. Have the difficult discussion. Come from empathy, but don't coddle them. Accept that you as well are just a human, you will be ignorant and hurt people even if you don't mean to. Only then can you actually make a change.
Ps. It is also important to note that excusing racism, transfobia etc. isn't what I mean. Especially in RG's case. I also cannot speak for any POC since it isn't my place. This is more about the very extreme way some (white) fans have reacted and taken it as a sign to be racist etc. bc RG has "earned it".
